Leftista

"Moral Values" Voters Outnumbered 4 to 1

2004-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Frank Rich

On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

New York Times, November 14, 2004

FAREWELL to Swift boats and "Shove it!," to Osama's tape and Saddam's missing weapons, to "security moms" and outsourced dads. They've all been sent to history's dustbin faster than Ralph Nader memorabilia was dumped on eBay. In their stead stands a single ambiguous phrase coined by an anonymous exit pollster: "Moral values." By near universal agreement the morning after, these two words tell the entire story of the election: it's the culture, stupid.

"It really is Michael Moore versus Mel Gibson," said Newt Gingrich. To Jon Stewart, Nov. 2 was the red states' revenge on "Will & Grace." William Safire, speaking on "Meet the Press," called the Janet Jackson fracas "the social-political event of the past year." Karl Rove was of the same mind: "I think it's people who are concerned about the coarseness of our culture, about what they see on the television sets, what they see in the movies ...

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch. Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News by willing hosts like Rita Cosby and, needless to say, Mr. O'Reilly. There are "real fun parts and exciting parts," said Ms. Cosby to Ms. Jameson on Fox News's "Big Story Weekend," an encounter broadcast on Saturday at 9 p.m., assuring its maximum exposure to unsupervised kids.

Almost unnoticed in the final weeks of the campaign was the record government indecency fine levied against another prime-time Fox television product, "Married by America." The $1.2 million bill, a mere bagatelle to Murdoch stockholders, was more than twice the punishment inflicted on Viacom for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." According to the F.C.C. complaint, one episode in this heterosexual marriage-promoting reality show included scenes in which "partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies," and two female strippers "playfully spank" a man on all fours in his underwear. "Married by America" is gone now, but Fox remains the go-to network for Paris Hilton ("The Simple Life") and wife-swapping ("Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy").

None of this has prompted an uprising from the red-state Fox News loyalists supposedly so preoccupied with "moral values." They all gladly contribute fungible dollars to Fox culture by boosting their fair-and-balanced channel's rise in the ratings.

...

Coup d'etat 2004

2004-11-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

For more on the "irregularities" on 11/2:
Votergate

New York Times, Oct 17: Exit Polls Protect the Vote

2004-11-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

The New York Times
October 17, 2004 Sunday

Exit Polls To Protect The Vote
By MARTIN PLISSNER.

Martin Plissner, a former CBS News political director, is the author of ''The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections.''

SINCE the 1960's, the exit poll, that staple of election-night television, has been used along with other tools to declare winners when the polls close in each state, and its accuracy is noted later when the actual vote count proves it right. A landmark exception, of course, came in 2000, when the networks initially gave the decisive Florida vote to Al Gore.

But now exit polls are being used in some places to monitor the official vote count itself, either to validate the outcome or to mount a challenge to it.

That has happened in several countries in the last year, and in the United States one organization plans to use exit polls in five closely contested states in November to measure whether there have been impediments to voting.

Last fall, an American firm, whose polling clients have included Al Gore and John Edwards, was hired by some international foundations to conduct an exit poll in the former Soviet republic of Georgia during a parliamentary election. On Election Day, the firm, Global Strategy Group, projected a victory for the main opposition party. When the sitting government counted the votes, however, it announced that its own slate of candidates had won. Supporters of the opposition stormed the Parliament, and the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, later resigned under pressure from the United States and Russia.

In August, exit polling figured in a bitter fight in Venezuela over what amounted to competing landslides for and against a recall of the sitting president, Hugo Chavez, a socialist with ties to Fidel Castro.

The recall's proponents sponsored an exit poll, supervised by Penn, Schoen & Berland, an American firm whose clients have included Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg. Sometime before the polls closed on Aug. 15, Penn, Schoen reported that 59 percent of Venezuelan voters had said yes to throwing the president out of office.

A few hours later, the official count, by an election commission under Mr. Chavez's control, declared him the winner, with 58 percent of the total. Both the Organization of American States and the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based human rights organization founded by Jimmy Carter, said that their observers had seen no irregularities at the polls. In response to the exit poll, they called for a random audit at selected polling stations and again found nothing suspicious.

Mr. Schoen acknowledged in an interview that the poll's field workers were recruited by a group that helped organize the recall, but he said the volunteers had been trained to conduct the poll professionally, and that his firm would have no reason to put its reputation at risk by participating in a fraudulent poll. The recall's supporters continue to believe the election was stolen.

In Afghanistan, ballot counting in last weekend's presidential election may not be over for a few weeks, and a United Nations panel is investigating claims of irregularities. But a survey of voters leaving the polls projected that Hamid Karzai, the current president, had received enough votes to avoid a runoff. The poll's sponsor, the International Republican Institute, is a Republican-run, federally financed vehicle for promoting democracy abroad. (The Democrats have one, too.)

Could exit polls also play a role in the American presidential election on Nov. 2? The potential is there.

Votewatch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, plans to conduct exit polls in selected states to monitor election procedures and record impediments to voting, including voting equipment flaws, confusion over ballots and perceived discrimination by polling officials.

Steven Hertzberg, a San Francisco systems engineer who founded Votewatch, said he planned to use volunteers supplied by civic groups like Common Cause, among other recruits, and that they would be trained and supervised by polling professionals.

...

The group has also decided to ask people whom they voted for, or meant to vote for, to assess whether one candidate's backers are more affected by irregularities. But Fritz Scheuren, president of the American Statistical Association and a principal adviser to Votewatch, said it was important to note that ''we are not competing with the networks, and we don't want to appear to be.''

In any event, its backers say, Votewatch won't be projecting who will win or lose in November -- only the incidence of voting problems that might affect the outcome.

Chart of Florida Voters by Party vs. Actual Results

2004-11-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Chart of Registered Voters by Party vs. Vote Results in Florida

Dick Morris: "Exit polls are almost never wrong."

2004-11-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

I usually don't quote or refer to Dick Morris, but this time his main points are correct, but his conclusions are off. He thinks the exit polls indicate a conspiracy by Democrats that election day to cause lower Republican turnout. This is from The Hill, the newspaper for Congress:

Those faulty exit polls were sabotage
Dick Morris, The Hill

By now it is well-known and a part of the 2004 election lore how the exit polls by the major television networks were wrong.

Likely this faux pas will assume its place among wartime stories alongside the mistaken calls on Florida’s vote for one side and then for the other in the 2000 election. But the inaccuracies of the media’s polling deserve more scrutiny and investigation.

Exit polls are almost never wrong. They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state.

So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave the polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries. When I worked on Vicente Fox’s campaign in Mexico, for example, I was so fearful that the governing PRI would steal the election that I had the campaign commission two U.S. firms to conduct exit polls to be released immediately after the polls closed to foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns. When the polls announced a seven-point Fox victory, mobs thronged the streets in a joyous celebration within minutes that made fraud in the actual counting impossible.

But this Tuesday, the networks did get the exit polls wrong. Not just some of them. They got all of the Bush states wrong. So, according to ABC-TV’s exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points.

To screw up one exit poll is unheard of. To miss six of them is incredible. It boggles the imagination how pollsters could be that incompetent and invites speculation that more than honest error was at play here.

The mistaken exit polls infiltrated all three networks and the cable news outlets and had a chilling effect on the coverage of election night.

While all anchors refrained from announcing the exit-poll results, it was clear from the context of their comments that they expected Kerry to win and wondered if Bush could hold any key state.

Indeed, one network hesitated to call Mississippi for Bush because of the uncertainty injected by the bogus exit polls. Dark minds will suspect that these polls were deliberately manipulated to dampen Bush turnout in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones by conveying the impression that the president’s candidacy was a lost cause.

The exit pollsters plead that they oversampled women and that this led to their mistakes. But the very first thing a pollster does is weight or quota for gender. Once the female vote reaches 52 percent of the sample, one either refuses additional female respondents or weights down the ones one subsequently counted.

This is, dear Watson, elementary.

Next to the forged documents that sent CBS on a jihad against Bush’s National Guard service and the planned “60 Minutes” ambush over the so-called missing explosives two days before the polls opened, the possibility of biased exit polling, deliberately manipulated to try to chill the Bush turnout, must be seriously considered.

At the very least, the exit pollsters should have to explain, in public, how they were so wrong. Since their polls, if biased or cooked, represented an attempt to use the public airwaves to reduce voter turnout, they should have to explain their errors in a very public and perhaps official forum.

This was no mere mistake. Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night. I suspect foul play.

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

2004-11-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

Published on Saturday, November 6, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
Karen Hughes had told Bush he lost in a landslide, November 2, based on the exit poll data
by Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

And some believe evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 9,676 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the touch-screen counties, where investigators may have been more vigorously looking for such anomalies, high percentages of registered Democrats generally equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. (I had earlier reported that county size was a variable – this turns out not to be the case. Just the use of touch-screens versus optical scanners.)

. . .

While all of this may or may not be evidence of vote tampering, it again brings the nation back to the question of why several states using electronic voting machines or scanners programmed by private, for-profit corporations and often connected to modems produced votes inconsistent with exit poll numbers.

Those exit poll results have been a problem for reporters ever since Election Day.

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

But then the computers reported something different. In several pivotal states.

. . .

Salon: Kerry 3-0, yet Punditry again call it a draw or play it down

2004-10-14T01:27:00.000-07:00

The media reaction: Ho-hum, just a Kerry sweep
If Bush had won all three debates, would the pundits have been so reserved?
By Eric Boehlert at Salona

Oct. 13, 2004 | It's hard to imagine that if an array of instant poll results spread over three debates and two weeks showed that John Kerry had failed to win a single survey, let alone a single debate, that Wednesday night's media spin would have been as humdrum as it was, when polls once again revealed Kerry had bested President Bush for the third time in as many tries. And Kerry did so with relative ease. According to the CNN/Gallup survey, 52 percent of voters thought Kerry won the third and final debate, compared to 39 percent who gave it to President Bush. CBS's turnaround poll also gave it to Kerry, 39-25. ABC's instant poll was much closer -- 42-41 for Kerry -- but its pool of respondents was weighted more heavily toward Republicans.

For Kerry, it's a rather startling and completely unforeseen achievement, considering Bush entered the final stretch season with an unblemished career debate record and had been given high marks by the press for his debate message discipline and ability to connect with voters. Yet he went O for 3.

Despite the consistent polling results, most of the assembled television pundits Wednesday night considered the debate to be a draw and suggested it would, in the end, have little impact on Election Day. Again, it's hard to imagine that the media response would have been so reserved if it were Bush completing a debate sweep. Either the pundits are right to discount the importance of the debates and that the last two presidential face-offs really were draws, or voters have been sending a clear message over the last two weeks, one that's been falling on deaf ears inside the media's Beltway. We'll know the answer to that question in 20 days.

the rest ...a

The Humor of George W. Bush

2004-10-13T01:26:00.000-07:00

On democracy:
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
-- December 18, 2000, CNN

On the death penalty (Karla Faye Tucker):
"`Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me.'"
-- September 1999, Talk Magazine

On campaigning:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on."
-- March 2001

On his Vice President:
"My goal is to clone another Dick Cheney, that way I won't have to do anything"
-- March 2001

On his claim to be a "uniter not a divider":
"It means when it comes time to sew up your chest cavity, we use stitches as opposed to opening it up" (to Letterman soon after his heart surgery).
--February 2000

On corporate control of farm foods, in ending a lunch with EU leaders:
"Let's go eat some genetically modified food for lunch."
--ABC News Online: June 26, 2003

On hearing that refusing to award Germany or France contracts in Iraq may violate international law:
"International law? I better call my lawyer."
-- December 11, 2003

On the wealthy:
"It's nice to be here with the have's and have more's. Some call you the elite. I call you my base."

On why the wealthy shouldn't be heavily taxed:
“The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.”
-- August 9, 2004

On raising daughters:
“I’ve been to war. I’ve raised twins. If I had a choice, I’d rather go to war.”
-- January 2002

On global warming:
"The only way to unlock the sun's mysteries is to have our astronauts do a lunar landing on its surface," said Bush. "Then, they can collect all of the astrological information we need. With this information we might one day find a way to cool off the sun and put an end to global warming. . . I envision a day, where we will no longer risk blindness by staring into the sun. Where, during a particularly hot summer, we might be able to turn a knob like on the thermostat which would draw a gigantic shade and give us all temporary relief. I realize this sounds like science fiction, but that’s what we said when we first started watching Star Trek."

To Washington Post reporter Terry Neal, an African-American, listening to his Walkman:
"Whatcha listenin' to? Some rap?"

On his tax cuts:
"My fellow Americans of the press corps, especially the cameramen, tax relief is on the way. Don't spend it all in one place. Thank you very much."
-- September 2003

On his three conditions under which a deficit would be acceptable (war, recession or emergency):
"Lucky me, I hit the trifecta."
-- Late 2001

On not finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq:
“Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere...," showing a slide of himself looking underneath furniture in the White House. "No, no weapons over there . . . Maybe under here?"
-- March 24, 2004, White House correspondents dinner

Responding to the question "War, what is it good for?" asked by a first grader:
"It's the economy, stupid."

On hearing that a plane had hit the First World Trade Center tower:
"That's one bad pilot."

On the eve of September 11, 2001:
George W. Bush: "And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back up stairs and go to bed."

Mrs. Bush: [laughs] "And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked."

Peggy Noonan (interviewer): "So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers."

George W. Bush: "That's right –– we got a laugh out of it."

Schieffer, Moderator of Third Debate, Bush's Golfing Buddy

2004-10-12T20:45:00.000-07:00

Schieffer's statements raise questions about objectivity

Bob Schieffer, CBS chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation, is scheduled to moderate the third and final presidential debate on October 13. As moderator, Schieffer will be responsible for formulating the debate questions and following up after the candidates respond. However, Schieffer has described in the past his "golfing friendship" with President George W. Bush "during the 1990s" and has said, "It's always difficult to cover someone you know personally." These and other past statements by Schieffer raise the very question that Schieffer himself suggested: Can he perform the role of objective moderator given the "difficult[y]" of "cover[ing] someone you know personally"?

Schieffer may find it "difficult" due to Bush friendship. According to an August 20 Mother Jones article, Schieffer "struck up a golfing friendship with George W. Bush during the 1990s." In 2003, Schieffer told Washington Post staff writer and CNN host Howard Kurtz: "It's always difficult to cover someone you know personally."

...
More at Media Matters

Furious George

2004-10-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

HIs angry eruption at Gibson was much worse than Dean's scream, so I am surprised that this isn't a bigger story.:

The madness of George

The Bush campaign was once happy to use 'angry' as a term of abuse - but that was before the US public met Furious George, writes US political blogger Markos Moulitsas
Tuesday October 12, 2004
The Guardian

The evolution of George Bush's persona over the past few weeks is startling for even the most casual observers. Only a short while ago, Bush was a strong, decisive leader and Kerry was a weak, flip-flopping Massachusetts liberal. The Bush campaign expected those images to carry them through the November elections: it had cost them more than $200m (�112m) to build those caricatures and they had every reason to expect a solid return on their investment.

But those images were built on a carefully crafted stage. Despite all the flaws in the US electoral process we still force the candidates to exit that bubble a handful of times during the election, and it is some credit to the system that those three 90-minute debates can still determine the fate of an election. This year, they have helped introduce the nation to Furious George.

Bush's political operators have worked overtime to make "angry" a pejorative term this political cycle. They wielded the "too angry" attack against Howard Dean in the primaries, when it seemed Dean would be the Democratic nominee, and it helped destroy Dean's candidacy. Republicans again shouted "too angry" to discredit Al Gore's series of impassioned anti-Bush speeches earlier this year.

The "too angry" claims successfully marginalised the content of those speeches - blistering indictments of an incompetent administration. But what happens when your best attack line is a double-edged sword?

Bush's operation has taken stage management to extremes. His handlers have figured - correctly - that the press conference format suits their man poorly and is to be avoided at all costs. His last primetime press conference was in April 2004, and he has had only two with the White House press corps since late August - both of them with the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, at his side. (The Bush campaign actually wrote Allawi's speech in order to squeeze out precious political points.)

...

Given the force of Republican efforts to deify Bush, his debate performances came as a big shock to many Americans. They showed a Bush quick to anger, indecisiveness, pettiness and petulance. The sheltered Bush was clearly unprepared for the debate and unprepared to face criticism. In fact, it seemed to take him by surprise. No one seemed to have told him he had critics.

After his first debate performance, Bush was in a quandary. He had to stem his erosion in the polls, but to do so would require attacking Kerry and furthering the perception that he was too angry to be president.

So how did he respond? By getting even more angry. He not only viciously attacked Kerry but also took out the moderator and several questioners in the process. Someone, somewhere, labelled Bush Furious George - a clever turn on HA Rey's Curious George children's books and an appellation that took firm hold in the online and, increasingly, offline worlds.

Bush acted like the proverbial ugly American trying to be understood in a foreign land, cranking up the volume and shrillness to make his points while Kerry sat by serenely. The contrast was impossible to miss as Bush became increasingly unhinged. Even on the road, Bush's desperation is palpable as the rhetoric soars to angrier heights.

...

Bush's political operation has conditioned the electorate to distrust "anger". It has made the charge a cornerstone of its smear effort against Democrats such as Dean and Gore. For a campaign that lives by the smear, it is poetic justice to see the tables turned. Furious George is here to stay.

Former presidential interpreter says Bush does use an earpiece commonly

2004-10-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

from Democrats.com
Also a bit on Bush's temper tantrums...

Bush's Interpreter Says Bush Uses Earpiece
Sunday October 10, 2004 1:46 AM

From: Fred Burks

As a deep insider myself, I have independent confirmation of President Bush using an earpiece to assist him in communicating intelligently with others. I've worked as a contract Indonesian language interpreter with the US State Department for over 18 years. I first started interpreting at the presidential level in 1995 at a White House meeting for President Clinton and President Suharto of Indonesia with their top advisors....

On September 19, 2001, just eight days after 9/11, I was in the White House interpreting for an important 90-minute meeting between President Bush and President Megawati Soekarnoputri of Indonesia. This meeting made national news on all the TV networks, as at the time, the administration wanted to show they were supportive of our Muslim friends. Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world. Over 80% of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim.

This was my first time interpreting for Bush. The previous day, I had been given the 22 points Bush would be covering in this meeting in order to familiarize myself with the topics to be discussed. About half of these "talking points" had to do with terrorism, which was to be fully expected given what had just happened. The other points, however, involved many details of Indonesian politics which even I would have had a tough time addressing, let alone Bush, who I assumed had limited knowledge of Indonesia.

During those 90 minutes, President Bush not only covered all the points, he covered them quite well and without any notes! Not once during the entire meeting did he look at any notes or receive cues from anyone present in discussing the Indonesian political situation with depth and intelligence. I was astonished! "How could this be?" I asked myself. It was a huge surprise. I concluded either that Bush was much more intelligent than we had been led to believe, or that somehow someone was feeding answers to him through a hidden earpiece. At the time, I really didn't know which of these was true.

Having worked directly with President Bush twice since then, and having additionally talked with many of my fellow interpreters who have worked directly with him, I am now certain that he could not have had that much knowledge of Indonesia. He doesn't even read the daily newspaper to keep up with what's being reported in the press. I am convinced that he must have been using some sort of earpiece through which someone was telling him what to say.

Having interpreted for media guests touring large TV studios, I've seen how the news anchors all have hidden earphones, and how the news producers are feeding them all sorts of information even as they talk live on TV. "20 seconds to a commercial," "15 seconds of filler here," "wrap it up quick " etc... This is standard practice for live TV shows. The "let me finish" comment made by Bush in the debate was only confirmation of something I already knew.

I will also mention that a number of months ago a colleague of mine was in the room with President Bush and his advisors when Bush threw a full blown temper tantrum filled with foul language and all. He ranted and raved at his advisors for a number of minutes to the shock and dismay of my colleague who was standing unseen in the refreshment corner. When he finally finished blowing off steam, Bush turned towards the refreshment table only to see my colleague standing there. He instantly switched into his "good ol' boy" friendly demeanor and said, "Hey, how ya doin' buddy?"

. . .

The Guardian: Was Bush wired for the debate?

2004-10-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

from The Guardian, not some conspiracy website. Originally, in Salon.

Bush's mystery bulge
The rumour is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?

Dave Lindorff
Friday October 8, 2004

Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumour flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behaviour during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh - Let me finish - The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at."

...

LA Times Editorial: Bush is a Dope

2004-10-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

Does this man think through his beliefs before they harden into unwavering principles? Is he open to countervailing evidence? Does he test his beliefs against new evidence and outside argument? Does his understanding of a subject go any deeper than the minimum amount needed for public display? Is he intellectually curious? Does he try to reconcile his beliefs on one subject with his beliefs on another?

It's bad if a president is incapable of the abstract thought necessary for these mental exercises. If he is capable and isn't even trying, that's worse. It becomes a question of character. When a president sends thousands of young Americans to kill and die halfway around the world, thinking about it as hard and as honestly as possible is the least he can do.

Bush is a Dope"

Bush dupes CNN & MSNBC into broadcasting full campaign speech

2004-10-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

You Call That a Major Policy Address?
In a week of devastating revelations about his Iraq policies, Bush has nothing new to say.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004, at 1:57 PM PT

Did CNN and MSNBC get hoodwinked this morning? Yesterday, the White House announced that President Bush would be delivering a "major policy address" on terrorism today. The cable news networks broadcast it live and in full. Yet the "address" turned out to be a standard campaign stump speech before a Pennsylvania crowd that seemed pumped on peyote, cheering, screaming, or whooping at every sentence.

The president announced no new policy, uttered not one new word about terrorism, foreign policy, or anything else. He did all the things he wanted to do in last Thursday's debate—accuse his opponent of weakness, bad judgment, vacillation, and other forms of flip-floppery—though this time without a moderator to hush the audience, much less an opponent to bite back. And Bush loved it, smiling, smirking, raising his eyebrows, as if to say, "How 'bout that zinger?"

In short, the cable networks were lured into airing an hourlong free campaign ad for George W. Bush.

The full article at Slate

I thought this was the case: MSNBC provided extremely slanted analysis of the VP debate

2004-10-06T13:27:00.000-07:00

Post-debate debate: Networks and cables v. MSNBC

Immediately after the vice presidential debate, Media Matters for America documented the media's reactions on cable and network television. While the clear majority of commentators described the debate as a draw, MSNBC pundits expressed a dramatically different view, declaring Vice President Dick Cheney the undisputed victor. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell claimed Cheney "steamroll[ed] over Edwards on foreign policy points"; Hardball host Chris Matthews said Cheney "was out on a hunting trip. ... And he found squirrel"; and Scarborough Country host Joe Scarborough proclaimed: "Edwards got obliterated by Dick Cheney." By contrast, conservative Washington Post columnist George Will said, on ABC, "I think both these men did a superior job."

According to a CBS poll, 41 percent of uncommitted debate watchers said Edwards won the debate, 28 percent said Cheney won, and 31 percent thought it was a tie. ABC's "scientific" poll, weighted towards Republicans (38 percent Republicans, 31 percent Democrats, 27 percent Independents), found that 43 percent of viewers thought Cheney won the debate. Thirty-five percent thought Edwards won, and 19 percent thought it was a tie.
...
For a long list of quotes from the post-debate coverage, see the whole article at Media Matters

100,000 Kurds Demonstrate in Iraq

2004-10-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

By Associated Press, 10/2/2004 08:34

SULEIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) About 100,000 Kurds demonstrated outside provincial government offices Saturday, demanding that the turbulent, oil hub of Kirkuk be made part of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

A tense confrontation has been building in Kirkuk, with hardline Kurdish politicians demanding the departure of some 200,000 Arabs who settled here during a campaign by Saddam Hussein's regime to increase the Arab population in oil-rich parts of northern Iraq.

''Kurdistan means nothing without Kirkuk,'' read banners carried by the demonstrators marching in Suleimaniyah. They called for a referendum to decide the future of all Kurds in Iraq. They also demanded that the two main Kurdish parties that now control the north unite under one banner.

A second, similar protest, drawing about 1,000 demonstrators, occurred in Kirkuk itself. Demonstrations were reported in other northern cities.

Demonstrations such as Saturday's appear aimed to increase pressure ahead of Iraq's general election in January, with the Kurdish parties looking to bring Kirkuk province into the orbit of the autonomous Kurdish lands.

Sunni Arabs in particular oppose incorporating the city into the Kurdish zone.

Allawi Speech Apparently Written by White House

2004-10-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

from TruthOut

Lawmaker Expresses "Dismay" that
White House Allegedly Wrote Allawi Speech
Agence France Presse

Thursday 30 September 2004

    Washington - In a letter to the White House, a leading US Senate Democrat expressed "profound dismay" that the White House allegedly wrote a large portion of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's speech to Congress last week.

    "I want to express my profound dismay about reports that officials from your administration and your reelection campaign were 'heavily involved' in writing parts of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's speech," California Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote in a letter to President George W. Bush.

    "You may be surprised by this, Mr. President, but I viewed Prime Minister Allawi's speech as an independent view on conditions in Iraq," she wrote.

    "His speech gave me hope that reconstruction efforts were proceeding in most of the country and that elections could be held on schedule."

    "To learn that this was not an independent view, but one that was massaged by your campaign operatives, jaundices the speech and reduces the credibility of his remarks," Feinstein wrote.

    Her letter was a response to an article appearing in Thursday's Washington Post, which also alleged that Allawi was coached by US officials - including Dan Senor, former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq - in perfecting his delivery of the speech delivered before a joint session of Congress one week ago.

Bush Administration using CIA to Manipulate Iraq Elections

2004-09-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

from American Muckracker
or TIME Magazine

CIA Operation to Influence Iraq Elections Shot Down

The Bush administration officially abandoned a CIA plan to influence upcoming Iraqi elections in the face of blistering criticism
from representatives on Capitol Hill.

The covert CIA operation would have provided aid to candidates favored by Washington, and, if the operation stayed true to form to previous such clandestine ops run by the CIA to influence foreign elections, would have attempted to sabotage the campaigns of those candidates not favored by Washington.

As usual the US media has soft pedaled the story by spinning it as a "positive" pledge by the White House not to involve the US on one side or the other in the Iraqi elections, rather than focusing on the fact that such a covert CIA plan was in the works in the first place.

Lawmakers, from both parties, raised questions about the plan, which had been in the works for several months, when it was sent to Capitol Hill. According to TIME magazine, house minority leader Nancy Pelosi "came unglued" when she learned about what a source described as a plan for "the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections."

Pelosi, TIME said, had strong words with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a phone call about the issue. Rice's spokesperson Sean McCormack refused to comment on the subject, which he referred to as "classified."

The strongest reporting on the CIA plot has come from overseas media such as the press in India, and from the blogosphere.

Under Bush, Many Corporations pay no Taxes

2004-09-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

from the Progress Report, by the Center for American Progress:

TAXES – CORPORATE WINDFALL: According to a new study by the trade journal Tax Notes, "America's biggest corporations are increasingly funneling profits earned in the United States to tax havens around the globe, depriving the United States Treasury of anywhere from $10 billion to $20 billion in lost tax revenue each year." Last year, U.S. corporations "shifted $75 billion in domestic profits last year to no-tax and low-tax foreign havens like Bermuda and Ireland." This comes on the heels of a separate study released last week by the Citizens for Tax Justice which showed 82 of America's largest – and most profitable – corporations paid zero federal income tax in "at least one year during the first three years of the George W. Bush administration."

Demott's Critique of the 9/11 Report

2004-09-25T20:56:00.000-07:00

Track it down: Benjamin Demott's essay in this month's issue of Harper's.
Here are excerpts:

. . .The plain, sad reality--I report this following four full days studying the work--is that The 9/11 Commission Report, despite the vast quantity of labor behind it, is a cheat and a fraud. It stands as a series of evasive maneuvers that infantalize the audience, transform candor into iniquity, and conceal realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation. Because it is continuously engaged in scotching all attempts to distinguish better from worse leadership response, the Commission can't discharge its duty to educate the audience about the habits of mind and temperment essential in those chosen to discharge command responsibility during crises. It can't tell the truth about was done and not done, thought and not thought, at crucial points. . .In the course of blaming everybody a little, the Commission blames nobody--blurs the reasons for the actions and hesitations of successive administrations, masks choices that, fearlessly defined, might actually have vitalized our public political discourse.

At the core of all these failures lies a deep wariness of earnest, well-informed public debate. And the wariness is rooted, clearly, in a conception of the nature of citizen virtue that (1) strips the critical instinct of its standing as essential equipment for the competent democratic mind, and (2) finds merit in the consumer credulity that relishes pop culture and shrugs off buyer-beware warnings. The ideal readers of The 9/11 Commission Report are those who resemble the Commission itself in believing that a strong inclination to trust the word of highly placed others is evidence of personal moral distinction. As the Report's project becomes ever more visibly that of sanctifying equivocation and deference, the Commissioners retreat ever further from evaluating the behavior of which their interviews and research nonetheless allow brief glimpses--behavior on which fair judgments of character and intelligence could and should have been based. . .

The Commission's book comes on, bewilderingly, as a pop entertainment, observing the conventions of old-time nonfiction narrative, tucking into out-of-the-way corners passages that approach complex or abstract matters. Chapters open with standard ominous-menace hooks. . .Chapters end with nightmare curtain lines. . . Children's book talkdown is leaned on to allay anxiety that some dry-as-dust, demanding lecture, bereft of entertainment value, on a quick-doze topic such as government organization, is in the offing. . . .

Daily Show viewers more politically astute

2004-09-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

it's nice to see this. i am tired of Daily Show viewers being referred to (as O'Reilly has) as mostly "stoned slackers."

Sep 21, 2004 12:20 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA -- Viewers of late-night comedy programs, especially The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the cable channel Comedy Central, are more likely to know the issue positions and backgrounds of presidential candidates than people who do not watch late-night comedy, the University of Pennsylvania�s National Annenberg Election Survey shows.

Polling conducted between July 15 and Sept. 19 among 19,013 adults showed that on a six-item political knowledge test people who did not watch any late-night comedy programs in the past week answered 2.62 items correctly, while viewers of Late Night with David Letterman on CBS answered 2.91, viewers of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno answered 2.95, and viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart answered 3.59 items correctly. That meant there was a difference of 16 percentage points between Daily Show viewers and people who did not watch any late-night programming.

The campaign knowledge test covered such topics as which candidate favors allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market, the income range at which John Kerry would eliminate the Bush tax cut, and which candidate is a former prosecutor.

�In recent years, traditional journalists have been voicing increasing concern that if young people are receiving political information from late-night comedy shows like The Daily Show, they may not be adequately informed on the issues of the day,� said Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center who conducted the research. �This data suggests that these fears may be unsubstantiated. We find no differences in campaign knowledge between young people who watch Leno and Letterman � programs with a lot of political humor in their opening monologues -- and those who do not watch late night. But when looking at young people who watch The Daily Show, we find they score higher on campaign knowledge than young people who do not watch the show, even when education, following politics, party identification, gender, viewing network news, reading the newspaper, watching cable ...

In fact, Daily Show viewers have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers -- even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration.�

full article

Republican mailing: Liberals will ban the Bible

2004-09-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

in the New York Times:
The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush.

The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians.

A liberal religious group, the Interfaith Alliance, circulated a copy of the Arkansas mailing to reporters yesterday to publicize it.

...

full piece

If Iraq were the US

2004-09-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?

What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?

What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

...
more from Juan Cole

A study: Media affects popular views of debates

2004-09-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

from today's New York Times

Recent studies of the debates four years ago by Prof. Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and others indicate that it matters whether a voter actually watches the debates or forms an opinion from reading media commentary devoted to them. Those who watched the first debate, Professor Jamieson said, tended to think Al Gore won, while those who merely read about it reflected the view of many journalists that Mr. Bush had succeeded in making Mr. Gore look hypocritical.

Majority of Americans support Canadian-style Health Care

2004-09-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

RANDI F. MARSHALL, NEWSDAY - - Rising health care costs and shrinking coverage have prompted a significant majority of Americans to support government regulation - or even universal health care, according to a survey released yesterday. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they supported a health care "guarantee," similar to the Canadian or British systems,
according to the survey, which was issued by Results for America, a division of the Civil Society Institute, a Newton, Mass.-based think tank. Additionally, 78 percent of Americans advocate government regulation of
health care, similar to utilities such as gas and water, the survey found.

"What this survey shows is a nation in the grips of a health care crisis," said Civil Society Institute president Pam Solo. "Americans are now prepared to embrace some tough ideas."

from Newsday
via the Progressive Review

An Ad to Beat Bush

2004-09-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

How Kerry could craft a Bin Laden commercial that makes him president
The Ad That Beats Bush
by Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice
September 14th, 2004 10:05 AM

If Kerry can pin bin Laden on Bush in his upcoming ads, he will finally connect with the fear that is driving this election.

The ad starts with Bush and his September 14, 2001, bullhorn. This time, though, it's a Kerry commercial that reminds swing-state Americans of Bush's blood vow�precisely three years ago�that "the people who knocked down these buildings" would "hear all of us soon." The cowboy soundbites that we would "smoke 'em out" track across the screen with any network's footage of the "wanted dead or alive" culprits: Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar.

Then the camera moves on to anchors reporting that bin Laden was cornered at Tora Bora, picked up on cell-phone intercepts commanding the surrounded 2,000 Al Qaeda troops, but that U.S. commanders were allowing mercenary Pashtuns to lead the fighting and Pakistanis to seal the backside border. Next, news headlines blare that Special Forces and key CIA operatives were prematurely pulled out of Afghanistan to prepare for the war on Iraq. The last visual is of Bush momentarily forced at a March 2002 press conference to discuss bin Laden: "I just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with ya."

The voice-over is Monica Gabrielle's, a 9-11 widow and leader. "My husband died in tower two and the people who killed him have not heard from us three years later. The president will not even talk about these murderers. Sometimes he claims his administration has captured two-thirds of Al Qaeda's lesser leaders; sometimes, three-quarters. The 9-11 Commission says one-quarter. Terrorists killed more people�625�in 2003 than in any year other than 2001. They wounded more than ever�3,646 people. Even the president concedes that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attack that changed my life forever. Why have we expended hundreds of times the resources and troops in Iraq than we have in pursuit of the mass murderers who vow to hit us again? Anybody could accept a good-faith effort that failed. But we cannot accept a so-called war on terror that has never aggressively targeted the number one terrorists."
...

Larry David Op-Ed in the New York Times

2004-09-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

September 16, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Are You Undecided? Or Not?
By LARRY DAVID

Los Angeles — I'd like to address this to the Undecideds: I'm on to you. You may be fooling everyone else with your little "undecided" act, but you're not fooling me. You know perfectly well whom you're voting for. The only reason you say you're undecided is that it's a cheap ploy to get attention. How do I know? Because I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I set the template, baby, and you're not passing the smell test.

You want to see real undecided? Go out to dinner with me sometime. I'll show you undecided. I look at the menu for 20 minutes, ask everybody what they're ordering, and then, finally, after I copy someone, wind up dashing into the kitchen to tell the waiter I've changed my mind.

Do a little shoe shopping with me. I guarantee you won't be able to stand it. The black ones. No, the brown ones. No, the black ones. Several of my relationships have ended in shoe stores, with women slipping out, unnoticed, never to be seen again. I even got thrown out of a poker game once because I sat there, paralyzed, unable to decide whether or not to fold. It wasn't a pretty sight, but at least it was genuine, not a bluff, like you people.

...

Not only are they lazy, they're also indifferent. They just don't believe that voting can have an effect on their lives. Well, it just so happens that right after I voted for the first time, I landed myself a big fat job in Hollywood, a biopsy came back benign and I met my future wife as soon as I walked out of the voting booth. Coincidence? You decide.

Larry David appears in the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

The full Op-Ed has an accompanying image

International groups to monitor US elections

2004-09-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

International Monitors Have Landed Here

The Bush-Kerry race might not, at first glance, seem to have much in common with tumultuous past elections in places such as Haiti, Nicaragua and East Timor. But come Nov. 3, the United States will share a distinction with those countries: It will join the ranks of nations whose elections were overseen by international monitors.

Responding to the 2000 presidential deadlock, at least two international groups plan to monitor the Nov. 2 U.S. elections.

A delegation for Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based nongovernmental organization that has monitored elections in 10 countries, arrived here this week. The group will fan out to several swing states to investigate what spokesman Jason Mark said were serious and deepening concerns about minority disenfranchisement, the integrity of electronic voting machines and other issues that have "undermined confidence" in U.S. elections. Mark called the effort "unprecedented."

from a piece in the The Washington Post

Annan: The Iraq War was illegal

2004-09-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan

Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian:

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.

Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."

He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

Mr Annan has until now kept a tactful silence and his intervention at this point undermines the argument pushed by Tony Blair that the war was legitimised by security council resolutions.

Mr Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.

...
full story

Bush's Guard excuse: "Daddy had a good friend"

2004-09-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

from Nicholas Kristof's column in today's New York Times:

One fall day in 1973, when Mr. Bush was a new student at Harvard Business School, he was wearing a Guard jacket when he ran into one of his professors. The professor, Yoshi Tsurumi, says he asked Mr. Bush how he wangled a spot in the Guard.

"He said his daddy had good friends who got him in despite the long waiting list," recalls Professor Tsurumi, who is now at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. Professor Tsurumi says he next asked Mr. Bush how he could have already finished his National Guard commitment. "He said he'd gotten an early honorable discharge," Professor Tsurumi recalls. "I said, 'How did you manage that?' "

"He said, oh, his daddy had a good friend," Mr. Tsurumi said. "Then we started talking about the Vietnam War. He was all for fighting it."

Professor Tsurumi says he remembers Mr. Bush so vividly because he was always making outrageous statements: denouncing the New Deal as socialist, calling the S.E.C. an impediment to business, referring to the civil rights movement as "socialist/communist" and declaring that "people are poor because they're lazy."

Media focusing on minor tangents, not core arguments about Bush's National Guard story

2004-09-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

from the Progressive Newswire
Media Should Probe Bigger Questions About Bush's Record

WASHINGTON - September 14 - In the past week, a handful of stories have cast doubt on whether George W. Bush fulfilled his National Guard obligations 30 years ago. Reports by the Associated Press (9/7/04), Boston Globe (9/8/04) and U.S. News & World Report (9/20/04) have all raised new questions about Bush's military service. Though each of these stories has been accompanied by significant official documentation, developments in the investigations by AP, U.S. News and the Boston Globe have been largely sidetracked by the fixation on questions about the authenticity of documents aired on CBS on September 8.

Weighing the credibility of evidence is an essential function of journalism. Experts have weighed in on both sides on the authenticity of CBS's so-called Killian memos (New York Times, 9/14/04; Washington Post, 9/14/04); efforts to establish the origin of those documents should continue. However, news outlets that focus on this tangent of the National Guard story to the exclusion of the unchallenged new evidence that has recently emerged are neglecting another essential journalistic task: holding powerful people and politicians accountable.

In the wake of the stories scrutinizing Bush's stateside service during the Vietnam era, it's hard to imagine a better situation for the White House than to have the press corps ignore a range of evidence raising questions about Bush's fulfillment of his obligations while obsessing singularly on one set of documents from one story.
...
Instead of asking the White House tough questions about the well-documented information contained in these reports, media have focused almost exclusively on the claims and counter-claims made about the Killian memos-- as if the discrepancies over Bush's service record stand or fall based on this one set of disputed documents. It's the equivalent of covering the sideshow and ignoring the center ring.
...
a review of stories is provided at the Progressive Newswire site:

Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War

2004-09-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

from The Onion:

Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War
WASHINGTON, DC—Military and political strategists agreed Monday that President Bush's re-election campaign has been executed with greater precision than the war in Iraq. "Judging from the initial misrepresentation of intelligence data and the ongoing crisis in Najaf, I assumed the president didn't know his ass from his elbow," said Col. Dale Henderson, a military advisor during the Reagan Administration. "But on the campaign trail, he's proven himself a master of long-term planning and unflinching determination. How else can you explain his strength in the polls given this economy?" Henderson said he regrets having characterized Bush's handling of the war as "incompetent," now that he knows the president's mind was simply otherwise occupied.

Rumsfeld confuses Hussein & Bin Laden

2004-09-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

from the daily report of the Center for American Progress:

FOREIGN POLICY – FREUDIAN SLIP?: Apparently, the Bush administration has conflated Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden so many times that even its own officials have become confused. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mixed up the names of bin Laden and Hussein twice in a speech at the National Press Club on Friday, at one point referring to Hussein as the leader of the al Qaeda-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. At another point Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001." He meant bin Laden. Rumsfeld might just be following the White House script. After all, in 2002 Bush said, "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

The Progress Report

Even Powell thinks Bush Administration is filled with "fucking crazies"

2004-09-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

Martin Bright
Sunday September 12, 2004
The Observer

A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Last week, the offices of Powell and Straw contacted Public Affairs, the US publishers of Naughtie's book, to say they would vigorously deny the claims if publication went ahead. But as no legal action was threatened, the US launch of the book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, will proceed as planned this week.

Naughtie stands by his claims and is said to be privately delighted that Powell and Straw have reacted so violently to the suggestion that the former US general had fallen out with the 'neo-cons'.

Naughtie claims that Powell and Straw spoke on an almost daily basis. Powell's concerns were said to have chimed with Straw's and those of Blair himself - that if America acted without UN sanction, allies would be lost.

Cheney and his allies were preparing for a spring war and did not wish to be deflected by the UN inspection process. Powell is thought to have been terrified that the strategy of the 'crazies' would alienate the Blair government, which believed it needed UN backing to win over Parliament and the British public.

Full story in The Guardian

White House Controlling Disemmination of National Guard Records?

2004-09-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

Strange: Inside the Washington Post's article on the National Guard issue:

"The Bush administration has issued government-wide instructions centralizing the release of information relating to the president's service with the Texas Air National Guard between 1968 and 1973. Officers responsible for implementing the Freedom of Information Act for the National Guard and the Pentagon declined to respond to queries from The Post last week on the completeness of the president's records, referring a reporter instead to Krenke and the White House press office."

Comparative Cases: Swift Boat Vets vs. National Guard

2004-09-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

A perceptive comment on this whole affair from Political Animal's Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly:

This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true.

Political Animal

60 Minutes: Texan Rues Getting Bush Into Guard

2004-09-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

On 60 Minutes, tonight:

Texan Rues Getting Bush Into Guard

Former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes tells Dan Rather in an exclusive interview that he regrets the "life or death" decision he made to help President Bush get into the National Guard. Tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT. More...
. . .
Videos, Interactive displays, texts, etc. at the site:
60 Minutes

No Surprise: If Globalwide voting, a Kerry Landslide

2004-09-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

From the International Herald Tribune:
Global poll shows a Kerry landslide

by Thomas Crampton/IHT, Wed, September 8, 2004

Poll finds him preferred around world

PARIS: If the world could cast a vote in the United States presidential election, John Kerry would beat George W. Bush by a landslide, according to a poll released on Wednesday that is described as the largest sample of global opinion on the race.

"It is absolutely clear that John Kerry would win handily if the people of the world could vote," said Steve Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland, a co-sponsor of the survey. "It is rather striking that just one in five people surveyed around the world support the re-election of President Bush."

The poll of 34,330 people older than 15 from all regions of the world found that the majority or plurality of people from 32 countries prefer Kerry to Bush.

Asia was the region showing the most mixed results, although Kerry still did better than Bush. Kerry won clear majorities in China, Indonesia and Japan, but slipped past Bush by only a slight margin in Thailand and India.

The most negative attitude toward the U.S. came from France, Germany and Mexico, where roughly 80 percent of those surveyed thought that the foreign policies of President Bush had made them feel worse about the United States.

The Bush's Turn on the Defense?

2004-09-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

President Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David during his father's tenure in office, and First Lady Laura Bush was a pot-smoking drug dealer in college, according to an Independent summary of claims said to be made in Kitty Kelley's forthcoming book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty."

A summary article in the The Independent, via Cursor.org

FOX News airs more of the Republican Convention than Democrats'

2004-09-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

from Media Matters for America:

FOX aired 48 minutes more (20 percent) of RNC speeches than of DNC speeches

Media Matters for America found that FOX News Channel aired four hours and 28 minutes of live speech coverage from the Republican National Convention (RNC), 48 minutes more (that's 20 percent more) than the three hours and 40 minutes the network aired of Democratic National Convention (DNC) speeches. CNN showed just two minutes more of RNC speeches than DNC speeches (a 0.7 percent discrepancy), and MSNBC aired 20 minutes fewer of RNC speeches than those at the DNC (a 6 percent discrepancy).

Prior to the RNC, FOX News Channel host Cal Thomas said that, in order to be "fair and balanced," RNC coverage should not differ from DNC coverage.

from: Media Matters For America

Michael Moore is providing daily coverage of the GOP Convention for USA Today

2004-08-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

The GOP doesn't reflect America
Michael Moore, Filmmaker

NEW YORK — Welcome, Republicans. You're proud Americans who love your country. In your own way, you want to make this country a better place. Whatever our differences, you should be commended for that.

But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city. (Related stories: Moore index page)

New York is home to Fox News Channel. The top right-wing talk shows emanate from here — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly among them. The Wall Street Journal is based here, which means your favorite street is here. Not to mention more Fortune 500 executives than anywhere else.

You may think you're surrounded by a bunch of latte-drinking effete liberals, but the truth is, you're right where you belong, smack in the seat of corporate America and conservative media.

"Moore's columns"

Defend Johnny Cash from Republican Uses

2004-08-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

"Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white."
-- Johnny Cash

"http://.defendjohnnycash.org/"

Definition: blowkay

2004-08-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

from the recently pubished,
The Future Dictionary of America

blowkay [bloh'-kay] adj. of an attitude, typically exhibited by the electorate, that elected officials who have sexual relations outside of marriage while in office are less deserving of impeachment than officials whose decisions lead to the loss of human life. Folks say the new senator from Rhode Island is a skirt chaser, but as long as he doesn't send thousands of Americans off to die in a war on false pretenses, he's blowkay with me.
—RYAN BOUDINOT

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern

CIA Report Coming on Iraq's Possible Weapons Capacity in 2008

2004-08-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

The [Los Angeles Times] previews a CIA report due to be released next month that will speculate on what Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities might have looked like in 2008 had the United States not invaded Iraq last year. Some officials, including Congressional Democrats, have charged that the report is merely a politically motivated attempt to confuse the fact that no WMDs have been found. Former weapons inspector David Kay, who resigned in January, told the Times he wasn't sure how such an evaluation is even possible. "No one ever suggested to me in any of the discussions before I took the job, afterward, or even when I left, that [assessing Iraq's future capabilities] was a thing that should have been done."

Vonnegut: I Love You, Madame Librarian

2004-08-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

From IN THESE TIMES:

I Love You, Madame Librarian

By Kurt Vonnegut
August 6, 2004

I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: Our daily sources of news, papers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books can we find out what is really going on. I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published near the start of this humiliating, shameful blood-soaked year.

In case you haven’t noticed, and as a result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war lovers, with appallingly powerful weaponry and unopposed.

In case you haven’t noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were.

With good reason.

In case you haven’t noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound and kill ’em and torture ’em and imprison ’em all we want.

Piece of cake.

In case you haven’t noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.

Send ’em anywhere. Make ’em do anything.

Piece of cake.

The O’Reilly Factor.

So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and the Chicago-based magazine you are reading, In These Times.

Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed that there were weapons of mass destruction there.

Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn’t even seen World War I. War is now a form of TV entertainment. And what made WWI so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun. Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don’t you wish you could have something named after you?

Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now am tempted to give up on people too. And, as some of you may know, this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.

My last words? “Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.”

Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.

What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without a sense of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?

Bush Flip-Flops

2004-08-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Center for American Progress lists 25 statements of Bush's flip-flopping. Here's some notables:

20. Gay Marriage

BUSH SAYS GAY MARRIAGE IS A STATE ISSUE... "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into." [Gov. George W. Bush on Gay Marriage, Larry King Live, 2/15/00]

...BUSH SUPPORTS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE "Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife." [President Bush, 2/24/04]

21. Nation Building

BUSH OPPOSES NATION BUILDING... "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road." [Gov. George W. Bush, 10/3/00]

...BUSH SUPPORTS NATION BUILDING "We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people." [President Bush, 3/6/03]

22. Saddam/al Qaeda Link

BUSH SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEEN AL QAEDA AND SADDAM... "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." [President Bush, 9/25/02]

...BUSH SAYS SADDAM HAD NO ROLE IN AL QAEDA PLOT "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." [President Bush, 9/17/03]

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=42263

Full List from the Center for American Progress

Bush Uses Joke to Counter Kerry's Taxes on the Rich

2004-08-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

Bush Brings Campaign Across the Potomac
Monday, Aug. 9, 2004 - 1:30 PM

ANNANDALE, Va. (AP) - President George Bush talked about taxes and entrepreneurship at a campaign stop today in northern Virginia.

The president held a town hall-style forum with about 600 supporters at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.

He criticized Democrat John Kerry's proposal to eliminate tax cuts for the wealthy, saying that "the rich in America happen to be small business owners" who put people to work.

Bush added that "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

Virginia's Democratic Party chairman Kerry Donley said after the rally that the fact that Bush is campaigning in Republican-leaning Virginia shows that his campaign is in trouble.

The Nation: How They Could Steal the Election This Time

2004-08-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

A somewhat long but excellent article from The Nation on the electronic voting machines, by Ronnie Dugger.
This portion is especially intriguing:

Incumbent US Senator Max Cleland and incumbent Governor Roy Barnes, both Democrats, were odds-on favorites to win re-election. A week before the voting an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed Cleland ahead by five points, 49-44, but on election day he lost to his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, by seven points, 53-46, a twelve-point swing. The loss of Governor Barnes to Sonny Perdue was even more remarkable: a one-week switch of fourteen percentage points. These were suspicious anomalies, and subsequently in a Peach State Poll one in eight Georgia voters were "not very confident" or "not at all confident" that the DREs had produced accurate results; another 32 percent were only "somewhat confident."

The Nation: How They Could Steal the Election This Time

Sen. Biden Questions Need for Recent Terror Alert

2004-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Aug 9, 2004, from the The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senator Joseph Biden says he believes the Bush administration might have overstated the immediacy of an attack threat last week.

Appearing on N-B-C's "Today" show, Biden said he saw no "hard evidence," nor did he see a "smoking gun." Biden is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In television talk shows yesterday, White House officials said arrests and document seizures have derailed plans to attack the United States.

Some of the surveillance intelligence dates back four years.

Kinsley does the Math: Democrats better on the economy

2004-08-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Do the Math, By Michael Kinsley
Washington Post Op-Ed excerpt, Sunday, August 1, 2004; Page B07

You know how sometimes, when it's really really hot, you get this urge to crank up the old spreadsheet, download a bunch of numbers from the Web and start crunching away like there's no next fiscal year?

Me neither. But I did spend a bit of the past week watching the Democratic National Convention on TV, and I needed something to exercise my mind while that was going on. Convention season is the one time every four years when we pretend that political parties matter. In general we have accepted the reality that campaigns for national office have become entrepreneurial, united more by shared political consultants than by old-fashioned parties.

Is there a difference between the parties that transcends the differences between the candidates? Is one of the parties, for example, a better steward of the economy? One year won't tell you much, or even one administration. But surely differences will emerge over half a century or so, if they exist. With that thought, I headed for the Web. Specifically, I went to the charts attached to the President's Economic Report, released in February. There I downloaded like a madman and then distilled the mess into a few key stats.

The figures I'm using are from the 43 years 1960 through 2002.This odd stretch of time reflects the years that are included in all of the charts I wanted to use. By doing it this way, I hope to convince you that I didn't choose the years to skew the results. Because the results are pretty interesting. Maybe presidents have little power over the economy. And we know that they must fight with Congress over the budget. Still, elections are based on the premise that whom you vote for does matter. So let's at least en- tertain that assumption for a few minutes.

It turns out that Democratic presidents have a much better record than Republicans. They win a head-to-head comparison in almost every category. Real growth averaged 4.09 percent in Democratic years, 2.75 percent in Republican years. Unemployment was 6.44 percent on average under Republican presidents and 5.33 percent under Democrats. The federal government spent more under Republicans than Democrats (20.87 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 19.58 percent), and that remains true even if you exclude defense (13.76 for the Democrats; 14.97 for the Republicans).

What else? Inflation was lower under Democratic presidents (3.81 percent on average, compared with 4.85 percent). And annual deficits took more than twice as much of GDP under Republicans as under Democrats (2.74 percent versus 1.21 percent). Republicans won by a nose on government revenue (i.e., taxes), taking 18.12 percent of GDP compared with 18.39 percent. That, of course, is why they lost on the size of the deficit. Personal income per capita was also a bit higher in Republican years ($16,061) than in Democratic ones ($15,565). But that is because more of the Republican years came later, when the country was more prosperous already.

The full piece

Bushism of the Day

2004-08-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Bushism of the Day
posted by Slate:

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
–– G.W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Will Ferrell in George W. Bush's new Political Ad

2004-08-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

this is worth viewing:

White House West

Barack Obama: Environmental issues concern all classes

2004-08-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

This is the lead from an article on Barack Obama's strong environmentalism from Grist Magazine:

Barack Star

Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama's got green cred
by Amanda Griscom 04 Aug 2004

As if America needs one more reason to fall in love with Barack Obama.

Beyond the unabashed idealism, stirring oratory skills, touching life story, and knee-buckling smile that have made this candidate for Illinois' open Senate seat the new beau ideal of progressive politics, it so happens that this guy is a bona fide, card-carrying, bleeding-heart greenie.

And it's not as though Muckraker didn't rifle through his environmental record going back more than a decade to try to find something off-kilter -- some skeleton in the closet, some flaw to make him a mere mortal. But all we found were accolades and evidence of true conviction.

Obama's comments at the League of Conservation Voters' pro-Kerry rally last week -- made only hours before he delivered the convention speech that catapulted him onto the national stage and elicited comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy -- brought enviros to their knees.

"Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in," Obama shouted. "And if I can do anything to make sure that not just my daughter but every child in America has green pastures to run in and clean air to breathe and clean water to swim in, then that is something I'm going to work my hardest to make happen."

The crowd went bananas in response to this call for unity across ethnic and socio-economic lines, as though they'd been waiting for exactly this kind of dynamic leader to free environmentalism from the perception that it's predominately a white upper-middle-class issue.

http://www.gristmagazine.com/muck/muck080404.asp?source=mailify

The Daily Show: awards, compliments, news

2004-08-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show wins News award –– chosen over Frontine, 60 Minutes, etc.

A column from the Rocky Mountain News:
Saunders: Critics honor comic 'news' July 22, 2004

HOLLYWOOD - Notes and quotes from a coffee-stained notebook:

Five nominees were on the ballot - Frontline, Nightline, Meet the Press, 60 Minutes and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

So which of the five deserved the award as the outstanding news and pubic affairs series during the 2003-04 TV season?

Members of the Television Critics Association, which I helped found 24 years ago, named Comedy Central's The Daily Show, a decision which still baffles many in the industry and one which produced incredulous commentary from Stewart who accepted the award via videotape.

The essence of his remarks: "We're fake!"

Frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed for our organization.

Some TCA members, aware of The Daily Show's extensive and entertaining "news reporting" format, let their show-biz instincts overrule their news programming logic.

The vote solidified what many believe is a growing trend: Younger viewers are getting their "news" from The Daily Show.

For the record, I voted for PBS' Frontline.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/entertainment_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_84_3053932,00.html

__________________________________________________

The Daily Show complimented for challenging Republican spin

From The Daily Howler:
In point of fact, it isn’t that hard to debunk bogus spin-points—the scripted, repetitive, ginned-up claims that now decide our White House elections. On Monday night’s Daily Show, in fact, Jon Stewart showed how easy the process can be. By Tuesday morning, we were flooded with e-mails about his effort, like the one we report below. But then, we often get rueful e-mails about Stewart:
E-MAIL (8/3/04): Did you see The Daily Show last night? Jon Stewart interviewed Congressman Henry Bonilla and actually forced the issue about the “number one liberal” statement, citing the National Journal's actual lifetime averages. It's a sad day when we have to rely on a “fake” news show to tell the truth.
Readers often note how sad it is—that Stewart, a comedian, debunks this crap, but our “journalists” resolutely will not.

And yes, despite a few leading questions, Stewart did hammered Bonilla around, although the clownistry of the point in question did make his job fairly simple. As we’ve noted, Republicans cite the National Journal when they claim—as they now do whenever they breathe—that Kerry and Edwards are the first and fourth most liberal members of the Senate. But as the Journal has clearly explained, those figures cover 2003 alone—a year in which Kerry and Edwards, out campaigning, missed about half the relevant votes. (Note: That’s the way our system works. While still governor, Candidate Bush spent seventeen months campaigning outside Texas.) Indeed, as the Journal has made abundantly clear, Kerry is far from the “number one liberal” if you measure his lifetime record, and Edwards is nowhere near number four, the claim voters hear again and again, recited by a gaggle of hacks who are sent on the air to mislead them. But so what? RNC shills state their bogus point—and millionaire “journalists” sit, drool and stare. For example, here’s how Newt Gingrich began his closing remarks on this week’s Fox News Sunday:
GINGRICH (8/1/04): I think what decides this race in the end is, do you think America can go forward better with President Bush continuing to lead, or do you really want the most liberal member of the Senate and the fourth most liberal member of the Senate, people to the left of Teddy Kennedy, people to the left of Hillary Clinton? And I think that choice is going to be so wide and so clear by mid-September.
Did Chris Wallace challenge this scripted point—a claim which baldly misled viewers? Of course not! Instead, here’s what he said when Gingrich stopped speaking: “I've got to say, Speaker Gingrich, that's the biggest bumper sticker I ever heard, but it was a good answer.” In short, it’s easy to mislead voters this way. Our “press corps” is happy to let you.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh080404.shtml

__________________________________

also –– strange, but good –– this weekend, Dean hosts Topic A with Tina Brown to discuss The Daily Show:
Howard Dean will also be joined by Jon Stewart from "The Daily Show" for a one-on-one discussion about the success of his Comedy Central program with the 25 and under set; the approach his show takes to the news, their spin on the media at large, and of course, Stewart's jabs at Dean on the campaign trail.
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/

Howard Dean: The administration is playing the politics with terror

2004-08-03T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a portion of Dean's statement, which Democrats have since distanced themselves. Perhaps they should recant such statements, since his initial assessment now proves warranted as the terror information is pre-9/11 old.

From Democracy for America.
Governor Dean joined Wolf Blitzer this Sunday, August 1, 2004. The following is a transcript of the broadcast.

Wolf Blitzer: Joining us now from Vermont, the former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, joining us live. Governor Dean, thanks very much for joining us.

And I want to immediately get your reaction to both of these developing stories. First, the decision by the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, to increase the threat level here in Washington, D.C., from yellow to orange, from elevated to high. What do you make of this?

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: It's hard to know what to make. None of us outside the administration have access to the intelligence, which led to this determination.

I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that "I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me," and then out comes Tom Ridge.

It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it...

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/features/2004/08/02/late_edition_with_wolf_blitzer_transcript.php

Former Asst Defense Secretary says Bush was AWOL in 1972

2004-08-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

From this morning's Progress Report (Center for American Progress):

MILITARY – BUSH AWOL AFTER ALL:
A four month investigation by a Philadelphia researcher, independently confirmed by a RAW story, "finally proves that President George W. Bush did not successfully complete his service with the Texas Air National Guard. The president's own payroll records – recently released by the White House in an effort to discredit claims that the president had failed to meet Guard requirements – instead indicate that he was absent without leave (AWOL) in 1972, and should have been placed on active duty for nearly four months." American Progress's Larry Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, has reached a similar conclusion. Asked if he thought Bush was AWOL, Korb said, "Based on these payroll records, unless he had permission, it would be."

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
http://www.rawstory.com/
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=176

Analysis: Media say Kerry/Edwards are millionaires; ignores that Bush/Cheney are

2004-08-01T11:05:00.000-07:00

The media too easily repeat RNC talking points.
From an analysis by the Columbia Journalism Review:

A search of the political coverage over the past few months reveals a press prone to needlessly introduce Senators Kerry and Edwards and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels for President Bush or Vice President Cheney. For example, a July 19 Associated Press article exploring the values debate in the campaign asserts, "Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and Edwards are both multi-millionaires, but both have portrayed themselves as more able to help the average American than the present Republican administration." However, nowhere do we learn that Bush and Cheney are hardly paupers themselves.

What's most revealing about the coverage are the instances in which Bush or Cheney are described as millionaires. With few exceptions, readers are treated to this characterization only in direct comparison to Kerry and Edwards. For instance, a July 15 Associated Press story documenting Edwards' answer to that ageless question for candidates, "How much does a gallon of milk cost?" notes that "All four candidates -- President Bush, Kerry, Edwards and Cheney -- are millionaires." Yet, you'd be hard pressed to find a story that discloses Bush's or Cheney's bankrolls without noting the Democrats'.

It's not hard to understand why this is: The Kerry campaign simply hasn't been as aggressive about pushing the "Bush and Cheney are rich" argument as the Bush campaign has been about portraying the Democrats that way.

http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000750.asp

Even Castro questions Bush's mental state

2004-07-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

from the Pakistan News Wire:

Cuban leader Castro questioned Bush's mental fitness

Tuesday July 27, 2004 (0139 PST)

SANTA CLARA, July 27: Cuban leader Fidel Castro has questioned U.S. President George W. Bush's mental fitness and rejected as "lies and slanders" recent charges by the American that Cuba encourages sex tourism.

Addressing the nation on the anniversary of his initial guerrilla uprising 51 years ago, Castro portrayed Bush as a dangerous religious fundamentalist bent on destroying Cuban socialism. He accused Bush of exhibiting "strange behaviour and bellicosity."

"Let's hope, in Cuba's case, God does not instruct Mr. Bush to attack our country," Castro said on Monday. "He had better check on any divine belligerent order by consulting the Pope." . . . Castro quoted extensively from a recent book "Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," by Dr. Justin Frank, a Washington psychoanalyst and a Democrat.

The book labels Bush as a "dry-drunk" whose abstinence and strict Christian beliefs make him a rigid leader with paranoid tendencies and a simplistic worldview.

Bush, who gave up drinking in 1986, has acknowledged that he "used to drink too much" but said he did not believe he was addicted.

Castro also quoted from other recent books critical of Bush, including Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" and "Against All Enemies," by former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke.

The references "help to explain the strange behaviour and bellicosity of the U.S. president," Castro said.

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=72079

Bush's mental state: paranoid & taking anti-depressants

2004-07-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

A pair of very interesting articles from Capitol Hill Blue which provide peaks into Bush's mentality of late:
--Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
--Sullen, Depressed President Retreats Into Private, Paranoid World

here are the lead portions:

-------------------------------------------------------

Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jul 28, 2004, 08:09

President George W. Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.

The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the President’s mental faculties and decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis, administration aides admit privately.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” says one aide. “We can’t have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a President who is alert mentally.”

Angry Bush walked away from reporter's questions.
Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8, refusing to answer reporters' questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.

“Keep those motherfuckers away from me,” he screamed at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”

Bush’s mental stability has become the topic of Washington whispers in recent months. Capitol Hill Blue first reported on June 4 about increasing concern among White House aides over the President’s wide mood swings and obscene outbursts.

...

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4921.shtml

-------------------------------------------------------

Sullen, Depressed President Retreats Into Private, Paranoid World
By TERESA HAMPTON & WILLIAM D. McTAVISH
Capitol Hill Blue Staff
Jul 29, 2004, 09:08

A sullen President George W. Bush is withdrawing more and more from aides and senior staff, retreating into a private, paranoid world where only the ardent loyalists are welcome.

Cabinet officials, senior White House aides and leaders on Capitol Hill complain privately about the increasing lack of “face time” with the President and campaign advisors are worried the depressed President may not be up to the rigors of a tough re-election campaign.

“Yes, there are concerns,” a top Republican political advisor admitted privately Wednesday. “The George W. Bush we see today is not the same, gregarious, back-slapping President of old. He’s moody, distrustful and withdrawn.”

Bush Walks Alone
Bush’s erratic behavior and sharp mood swings led White House physician Col. Richard J. Tubb to put the President on powerful anti-depressant drugs after he stormed off stage rather than answer reporters' questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay, but White House insiders say the strong, prescription medications seem to increase Bush’s sullen behavior towards those around him.

“This is a President known for his ability to charm people one-on-one,” says a staff member to House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert. “Not any more.”

White House aides say Bush has retreated into a tightly-controlled environment where only top political advisors like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are allowed. Even White House chief of staff Andrew Card complains he has less and less access to the President.

Among cabinet members, only Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fundamentalist who shares many of Bush’s strict religious convictions, remains part of the inner circle. White House aides call Bush and Ashcroft the “Blue Brothers” because, like the mythical movie characters, “both believe they are on a mission from God.”

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, the man most responsible for waging America’s war on terrorism, complains to staff that he gets very little time with the President and gets most of his marching orders lately from Ashcroft. Some on Ridge’s staff gripe privately that Ashcroft is “Bush’s Himmler,” a reference to Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the SS (the German Police) under Adolph Hitler.

“Too many make the mistake of thinking Dick Cheney is the real power in the Bush administration,” says one senior Homeland Security aide. “They’re wrong. It’s Ashcroft and that is reason enough for all of us to be very, very afraid.”
...
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4930.shtml

David Brooks made me do it.

2004-07-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Ok. David Brooks, for a bit, I thought was somwhat respectable. On PBS, after the John Kerry convention speech, was complimentary towards the speech. I thought: a republican who makes acknowledgments when it's due. Then, this morning, in his column for the New York Times, he slams it as incoherent and flip-flopping. A 180º turn. More than that that, it was right in line with other standard criticisms coming from the administration since then.

Sounds like he recieved his talking points fax from the RNC and was roped back on message. A NYT columnist should be able to think for himself.

So, I've had to start one of these blogs just to vent at such things. A lot of other media coverage just the same for the convention.

thoughts on the convention

2004-07-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

i had emailed most this to a friend, but here:

I did watch a lot of the convention. I know it was scripted, but it was still well done, and there truly was some great oratory, which i always appreciate. I thought the first night was a triple-bill blowout with Gore (who has been great lately, though he could have been stronger), Carter (who was harsh on Bush), and then Clinton was in high form, equalling or perhaps surpassing his best speech moments (likely aided by being so succinct and focused). And, then great speakers were fewer.

Barack Obama: did you see him? I was talking about him before, I don't know if you remember. Anyway, we became aware of him in preparing for the Illinois primary and we voted for him. I thought his speech was the single best of the convention –– well written and powerfully delivered. I actually didn't mind Heinz Kerry's display of her knowledge of five languages in her speech –– much better than a sad Hillary Clinton baking cookies: do you remember that dumbing down episode of the first lady?

Then: Jesse Jackson was good (as always) and so was Sharpton, who ditched the vetted six minute speech for some twenty minute tirade. When he was speaking, I knew it wasn't cleared, because it was harsh and going after Bush directly. I think it was a convention highlight. And Dean was pretty good too.

Edwards' speech was fine. Perhaps I had heard the Two Americas speech too much, but I was glad that it was the Two Americas speech –– worried that they would want that more moderate and less populist, but they didn't. It worked. I hear that Clark actually gave a good speech.

And, I had high hopes and low expectations for Kerry, but, Damn!, he did it. I thought that at once he appealed heartily to his base (which i was worried he wouldn't do), but also was appealing not just to moderates or undecideds but the rest of the country. He gave one of his finest performances: confident and forceful.

today, on Democracy Now! and they played Kerry's address to Congress in 1971 about Vietnam. And, damn again, that speech was powerful too, and remarkably parallel to the situation we face today with this administration. I recommend listening to that bit of history. It makes you realize how big his role was in turning the US around in Vietnam, which to me is his most remarkable point of his biography. Back to the convention speech, though, I thought that he's going to win. After the speech, Ed Gillespie, was commenting on the speech right after, and he looked worried, and his criticisms seemed miniscule, lame, petty, and negative -- probably like the rest of their campaign.

Conventions may be scripted but they are still venues for good speeches and I welcome that. It also made me wonder who do the Republicans have that speaks half as good as any of them? Their base loves the content of their speeches, but I don't recall (since Reagan) anyone saying that a republican who is an orator. They have no Obamas.